


Breaking and Entering

by iridescentglow



Category: Make It or Break It
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-29
Updated: 2009-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:40:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentglow/pseuds/iridescentglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily continues to train at the Rock after hours – and finds she's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking and Entering

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers:** #1.10, 'All That Glitters'
> 
> **Warnings:** Obviously, Emily is 16 and Sasha is really, really not. This fic also includes dominance/submission. However, I have tried to handle the subject matter sensitively, while minimizing the dubcon aspects inherent to the pairing. Nonetheless, please proceed with caution, especially if you find masochism triggering.

** _Chapter 1_ **

 

The gym was cool, dark and inviting. At night, it transformed: the dangers of the bar and vault felt more acute, but the taste of a successful routine was also sharper, more intense.

Damon had been gone for a month; his presence had turned musty in Emily's bottom drawer; his postcards were now nestled beside similar ones from Razor. He was gone, but he'd left Emily with a new skill and a slender lock pick. Now, she could train at the Rock whenever she wanted, twisting the metal blade in the lock and quietly letting herself inside.

On nights when she couldn't sleep, this meant that training beckoned. Twisted up in her bed sheets on those nights, she became obsessed with the idea that she was losing time. She felt the itch beneath her skin, and her fingers curled around non-existent bars. Not long till the next meet; not long till the Nationals circuit began again; not long till 2012. Insomnia pricked at her eyeballs and her heart raced. Any moment she didn't spend training felt like a moment wasted.

On this night, however, she found that the gym was not empty.

Emily took a step backward, catching her breath in her throat. Her gym bag slammed against her thigh as she ducked behind a pile of mats. She hoped the sound wasn't enough to alert him to her presence. Tensed, she looked in his direction, waiting for the familiar, castigating call of "Kmetko!"

She watched as, with one fluid movement, he reached out to grip the high bar with both hands. He spun around the bar several times, then paused at the top, legs in the air, jack-knife-straight. Emily realized she'd stopped breathing. There was nothing overtly skilled about the move, but the sheer control evident in each of his movements was overwhelming.

Still almost thoughtlessly elegant, he dismounted with a salto, twisting in the air and then landing on the mat without the slightest stumble. He didn't raise his arms or signal to imaginary judges, as she and everyone else at the Rock did, obsessively. She realized that it wasn't about that for him anymore. Gymnastics ran bone-deep in his body; he wasn't performing, he was just soothing the itch beneath his skin.

Belatedly, she remembered that he had a right to be here and she absolutely did not. Tearing her eyes away from him as he took to the bar once more, she turned and began to shuffle noiselessly away. If she was very quiet, she could creep out without him ever noticing she was there.

"Wait."

She almost thought she'd imagined hearing it, but she turned back to look at him. He was on the bar again, spinning, weightless and all-powerful. He released to perform a tuck and resumed his revolutions effortlessly. When he dismounted, she saw the unfocused, game-face quality in his eyes clear visibly. And he was looking right at her.

"Emily," he said.

"Sa…" She felt the name die on her tongue and she choked out instead, "Coach Belov."

He took a few paces toward her, till he was standing close enough that the sheen of sweat on his limbs was visible. She was acutely aware that he wore only a pair of black shorts. His hands, still cloaked in leather grips, flexed at his sides. She watched as a single bead of moisture tracked along the muscles of chest, then her head snapped up.

"I," she said. "I didn't expect you to be here."

"No," he said, "it was quite impolite of me to interrupt your personal training time. I even let myself in using my own key. Which, of course, is a preposterous way to go about things."

Emily stared at him, her cheeks burning. However, while sarcasm dripped from his voice, he seemed more light-hearted than usual. Amused, even.

It gave her the confidence to lift her chin and say, "Funny, I thought this gym was for _current_ Olympic hopefuls."

He allowed his smile to appear only momentarily, before he wiped his face blank again.

"Yes," he said, "I'm much too old for this. I should leave it to the Carters of this world, with their babysoft skin and guileless ignorance."

"If you're too old, then why do you—?"

"The same reason you're here at"—his eyes flicked to the clock—"one a.m. Because to not do it is an unbearable kind of torture."

The humor had drained from his voice and his dilated eyes appeared to Emily like black wells. Perhaps realizing the intensity of his expression, Sasha turned and jogged back to the high bar. Taking this as a signal, Emily adjusted the strap of her gym bag and turned to leave.

"Emily," he called out, "since you're here, you might as well do some training."

She turned and looked at him.

"They tell me that's what this place is for," he added, sounding light-hearted once more.

To her surprise, over the next three hours, he did not critique her performance once. He did not even provide any commentary. Were it not for the fact that she occasionally lifted her head after a dismount and realized he was watching her, she might have thought he wasn't even aware of her presence. They worked out side-by-side – he on the men's equipment, she on the women's – like teammates. However, it was hardly comparable to working out alongside Kaylie or Lauren. She found her focus fraying as she sneaked glances at Sasha as he landed yet another faultless routine.

When the darkness in the gym began to lighten perceptibly, the sunrise just visible through the high windows, Emily reluctantly reached for her sweats and shoes. She felt exhausted but exhilarated. On her way to the door – the front door; the time for pretence was clearly over – she hesitated, tempted to say goodbye to Sasha, but thinking better of it. Despite their new comradeship, the feeling that this was his territory and she was intruding was hard to shake.

However, as she opened the door, he called out, "I hope never to see you here at night again, Emily."

She half-turned and caught a glimpse of his smirk before he returned to the rings. As she walked home, the words repeated inside her head, over and over. From his tone of voice, it sounded less like a real warning and more like a challenge to defy him.

*

It was several days before her schedule permitted her to train at night again. She worked three consecutive graveyard shifts at the Pizza Shack, clocking out each night at 3:30 a.m., utterly zombified. At home, she fell asleep without showering, the flour sprinkled in her hair making her appear older than her years. On those nights, she dreamed. She dreamed of a perfect 10. She dreamed of flying.

On the fourth night, when she was not scheduled to work, the phone rang. It was her meth-head boss, Suzie.

"No, I can't work tonight. I really can't. I'm sorry," she said.

"What," Suzie spat down the phone, "you got a date or something."

_No, better_, Emily thought, obliquely pleased that Suzie could never, ever understand the feeling that awaited her that night at the Rock.

After her mom and Brian had gone to bed, Emily quietly let herself out of the apartment. She ran all the way to the gym, scarcely feeling the pain as her sore soles struck the sidewalk. She thought again of Suzie's comment about a date. She couldn't help but smile. She didn't bother to be quiet as she jammed her pick into the lock and flung the door open.

The gym was empty.

The realization hit Emily with what felt like a physical blow. A repeat performance of the other night – the chance to train alongside not just Sasha-Belov-the-coach, but Sasha-Belov-the-Olympian – was all that had kept her going through her work shifts and her money worries and her fears that she wasn't fitting in at the Rock. To have it yanked away without warning was almost too much to bear.

On automatic, she began to warm up. She told herself it didn't matter that Sasha wasn't there. It was the Olympics that mattered – Sasha was just a tool she would use to get there.

She'd been training for perhaps an hour when she became aware of something at the edge of her peripheral vision. Her heart clenched and she messed up the end of her routine on the mat. She landed painfully on her hands and knees.

Sasha didn't rush to help her, of course. He just watched impassively from his place near the entrance. Emily didn't even try to get up, she just rocked back on her heels and looked at him. He was not dressed for workout, wearing instead the loose, slurry-colored uniform that marked him as a coach, not a gymnast.

"Tell me I messed up, then," she called out, her disappointment turning to bile in her mouth.

"You messed up," he replied tonelessly.

He hesitated, looking at her for a long moment, and then turned to leave.

"Wait…" she said.

He kept walking, as if he hadn't heard her.

*

** _Chapter 2_ **

 

Emily worked the early-evening shift at the Pizza Shack for the next three days, running home only to grab her gym bag and feign sleep until her mother's snuffly snores could be heard from the next room. She kept going to the gym each night that she was free, even though she had swallowed the grim realization that Sasha would not join her again.

As she jogged across the parking lot, her eyes were instinctively drawn to Sasha's trailer. Usually, a dim light glowed from within and Emily imagined that he was inside, watching her. Tonight, however, the trailer was dark.

She knew it was Saturday night only because the Pizza Shack had been slammed. Without school to anchor her, the days tended to blur together. But tonight, it was unmistakably Date Night, which meant couples holding hands, sating their urges with extra cheese.

As usual, she used her pick to let herself into the Rock. Despite her resolve to stop thinking about Sasha, she still experienced a tiny release of disappointment upon finding the gym dark and empty. As she went through the motions of warming up, she found the disappointment chased by a wave of deep weariness.

When he'd caught her sneaking out of the apartment earlier that night, Brian had just raised his eyebrows and said, "You know, they did studies on animals. To see what happened if they didn't sleep. Know what happened to those cute little fuzzy mice? They died. Of exhaustion."

Emily sighed at the memory. She'd laughed at the time, because it had felt like a joke. It didn't seem so funny anymore. Maybe she really should dial it back; train less; sate her urges the way other girls did.

Slowly, she gathered her things and left the gym. She had already begun to imagine her alternate evening rolling out before her. Brian would probably still be awake when she got home. The two of them could watch a bad movie and talk over it. Then, bed; a decadent six hours of sleep.

As she passed the dark trailer in the parking lot, she slowed her pace to a stop. Was he home but asleep? Was he out somewhere? What did he do on nights like this? What did his life outside of the Rock look like?

The silver shell of the trailer gleamed in the darkness. If she kicked it, would it dent, or would it just break her foot? She reached out and placed a hand against the cold metal. Then she curled her hand into a fist and began to pound against the trailer's exterior. She knocked until she wondered if she'd broken her hand instead of her foot. No one answered.

_Where are you?_

She turned to leave, and then remembered the lock pick in her pocket.

She heard Brian's voice in her head: "You know what happened to those sleepy mice right before they died? They went crazy. Like, bad shit _insane_."

The lock on the trailer was a cheap thing. It was child's play to pop unlocked. The door swung open with little resistance. Emily stepped inside and groped for a light switch. She shut the door behind her carefully, as if this were her own home. She'd lived in a trailer before, of course; in San Diego, they hadn't been able to afford an apartment. This one was smaller, but recognizably similar. Cheap wooden cabinets and worn linoleum. She was almost disappointed. She'd expected that getting inside his home might be a little like getting inside _him_. She ran a finger across the counter idly. _Clean_. Of course. Control freak.

Her eyes roamed the trailer's walls, landing on a neat collage of newspaper clippings. There was a shot of the winners from Nationals, with Kaylie smiling in the centre. It had become the stock image from Boston, reprinted in all the major newspapers. Beside it, however, there was a much less publicized shot. It showed her, alone, finishing her floor routine, with her back curved into a perfect C. It had run in a Boulder weekly newspaper that covered church bake sales and lost dog stories – she knew because her mom had bought five copies.

She stared at the picture for a long moment. Then she reached it out and tore it down, shredding it into pieces. He couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't ignore her each day, treat her just like anyone else, and then come home and claim her successes for himself. She wouldn't smile, obedient, pasted up on his wall.

"Where are you?" she demanded of the empty trailer.

Maybe he was sitting in an all-night diner somewhere, placidly reading paperback mysteries and waiting for the darkness of insomnia to recede…

No. Of course not. There was only one place he could be, late on a Saturday night: in a bar, picking up a woman.

Emily exhaled hard. These women he picked up – these figments of her imagination that had already grown 50ft tall and lurid inside her head – did he take them back to his trailer? Did he fuck them in here?

She walked the three steps to his bed. It took up the entire width of the trailer and sagged slightly in the middle. Ugly plaid sheets, laundered thin. She sat down on the edge of his bed. She looked down at her hands: the gray of newsprint was caught in her fingernails. She was so tired. She hadn't wanted any of this; she'd just wanted to train and be the best, without any feelings to cloud up her head. She was so tired.

She kicked off her shoes, shrugged off her track jacket and lay back. The softness of the sagging mattress enveloped her. She stared at the ceiling and then closed her eyes. She tried to imagine the weight of him on top of her; she tried to imagine herself as one of those other women. Tiredness was unravelling her thoughts, so she could concentrate on nothing except two facts: she wanted to sleep and be close to him. Sleep. And be close to him. Sleep. And be close to him. Sleep…

*

Emily woke up with a start. It was morning. That much was definite. Bright sunshine made her squint her eyes. Through the glare, she saw illuminated numbers, red and angry: it was 6:52. She was late—

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. If her mom wasn't up yet, there might still be hot water for a shower. There might even be milk for cereal. She really needed to get going. She was—

Her stomach dropped and it felt like a boulder falling through her body. The physical sensation was enough to make her sit back down again. She wasn't at home. She was still in Sasha's trailer. She was still in Sasha's _bed_. And he was looking straight at her.

"It's Sunday," he said. "No practice. You're not late."

Emily remained mute. In order to form sounds, she would need to comprehend what was happening; why he was seated in a crappy lawn chair two feet away, looking at her as if this were a regular occurrence. She stared back at him. He remained impassive, relaxed even, with one leg propped up on the other, ankle-on-knee.

He smiled and she realized he was enjoying her discomfort. When he spoke again, his tone was almost mocking. "Does your mother know where you are?"

"I—" The word sounded foreign in her mouth. She tried again, her voice low and hoarse. "I usually go for a run on Sunday mornings." She cleared her throat. "My brother will cover for me."

"Really? What else is it you get up to that he needs to cover for you?"

She tried to stand up, but her feet felt wobbly. The absurdity of this realization was intense. She'd torn a ligament in her ankle when she was fourteen and she'd still been able to stand up. A gymnast is never fully incapacitated. She tried again to make her feet work and, when she couldn't, she had to laugh.

Sasha must have thought she was laughing in response to his comment, because he raised his eyebrows. "Well, well, the secret life of Emily Kmetko," he said. She might have been imagining it, but she thought his voice sounded almost flirtatious.

She was still wondering how to reply when he said, "I suppose I should ask what you're doing here. Why my clippings are in tatters."

"I was just—"

He cut her off, his voice sharp. "I said I _suppose_ I should ask. Not that I was going to."

His sudden switch from flirting to commanding rankled with Emily. Now that she'd realized he did not seem at all disturbed by her unexplained presence in his trailer, she'd begun to calm down.

She strove for an offhand tone of voice when she said, "This bed is very soft. Thanks."

He laughed, loudly, and the relaxed expression returned to his face. "This trailer," he said, "the couple I bought it from, they had six children. So I can only assume the bed performed at least one function more than adequately."

Emily bit her lip to keep from smiling. Then she gave up the pretence and allowed the smile to relax her face. For a moment, the scene almost felt normal. They could sit and laugh and make fun of each other. She hadn't been aware that was something the two of them could do.

Sasha was the first one to realize the moment couldn't last forever. He cleared his throat and then said, "You should probably go for that run now."

She checked his face for signs that he was bluffing; that he was giving her an excuse to leave, but really, he wanted her to stay. She found none. Anger flared inside of her.

"That's all I am to you," she said. "An athlete, a gymnast. You look at me and that's all you see."

His answer was immediate: "No."

Emily took a deep breath and wondered if she was capable of believing him. She closed her eyes momentarily as she exhaled. When she opened them, she saw that he had moved. From the chair, he had dropped to his knees before her.

His hand reached for her foot. He pressed the pad of his thumb against her bare sole. The skin there was rough, coated permanently with a layer of chalk and dust that she could never scrub clean in the shower. On automatic, she jerked her foot away, but he held tight, pressing hard against her arch. "I see," he said.

It was not unusual for him to touch her like this. He spent every day at training molding her body, using his hands and eyes to guide her and make her limbs bend as they would not naturally. But this felt different – intimate. He ran his fingers up over her heel and along the back of her calf. His hands were calloused and she felt like even a feather-light touch was capable of leaving marks on her skin.

"I see," he said, "an exceptional young woman."

Gently, his hands lifted her leg, so that it straightened at the knee. He pushed at her cold muscles until they strained – the twinge of pain in her body came accompanied by a shot of adrenaline – and slowly straightened the whole of her leg, so that her knee was just inches from her nose and her toes pointed at the ceiling.

His fingers drew a line down the back of her leg, until they reached the place where her ragged shorts fell on her thigh. Then he stopped. For a long moment, the two of them held the position.

Then, all of a sudden, he withdrew his hands and he was gone. He opened the trailer door with such force that it strained on its hinges, before slamming shut after him. Emily sat perfectly still, counting to a hundred, her leg in the air.

When she'd finished counting, she stood up and put on her shoes, collected her jacket and her gym bag. She even stopped to check that her water bottle had not slipped from its pouch. She left the trailer and set off at a run, with her bag bumping awkwardly against her thigh. She ran until she reached the apartment complex where she lived, and then she kept on running. She usually ran for two hours on Sunday mornings. And run was what Sasha had told her to do.

*

** _Chapter 3_ **

 

"Let's say there's this hypothetical girl and her relationship with this hypothetical guy… well, it's kinda weird."

A week had passed since Emily had fallen asleep in Sasha's trailer, and it was frustrating how little had changed between them since then. At practice, Sasha devoted exactly the same amount of time to her training as always, but he seemed to stare right through her. Their shared moment in the trailer was already beginning to feel like a dream.

She didn't know what to do next. It was pretty obvious that she needed advice. This was why girls talked to their friends about boys. But Emily wasn't exactly overrun with options in that arena. Kaylie would once have been her best bet, but becoming National Champion had wrought a change in her and all she had time for now was gymnastics. Lauren was another obvious choice, but Emily would sooner cut off her own hand than admit to Lauren that she might need help.

That left one less-than-ideal option.

"_Mom_. I'm talking to you."

"Hrm? Oh, honey, don't you wanna watch the show? Chuck's mother, she's alive!"

"No, mom, I don't wanna watch the show. Can you just listen to me for five minutes?"

"Oh, commercials!" her mom said happily and muted the TV. "I am all yours, sweetie."

Emily rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure I can be bothered anymore."

"Aw, come on. Hypothetical girl. Hypothetical guy. Tell me more."

Emily took a deep breath. "Well, this guy. Sometimes he acts like he's not interested… but then sometimes he acts like he _is_ interested."

"Wait. Are we still being hypothetical?" Her mom let out a whoop. "Did you meet a new boy, honey? I'm so pleased! You've been so moody lately." She frowned. "I always knew that Damon boy would break your heart."

"Damon didn't break my heart. And I haven't been moody, I've been… distracted."

Her mom prodded her. "Distracted because of a boyyy!"

"Yeah, I guess," said Emily, irritated.

"So what's his name? Where did you two meet?"

"Mom, let's just keep this hypothetical. It's easier."

"Fiiine. _Hypothetically_… what's the problem?"

Emily sighed and sat back, hugging a couch cushion to her chest. She said slowly, "I guess I just… want to know where I stand. I want things to… move faster."

Chloe suddenly adopted her patented Concerned Mom expression. "Honey, sometimes you might _think_ you want to move faster. But you have time. All the time in the world. And, one day, you might look back and wish you'd waited."

"Mom! I don't want to have the sex talk. We've done that already. Anyway, me and… Hypothetical Guy. We haven't even kissed yet. He's… shy." Emily made a face. 'Shy' was definitely not the right word to describe Sasha.

Her mom relaxed visibly. "In that case, you just need to… be aggressive. B-E aggressive!" She pumped her arms in the air like a crazed cheerleader. "B-E aggressive!"

"Maybe that works for you, Mom, but…"

"Well, you don't have to do the cheerleading moves along with…" Her mom grinned. "Although, I always thought you'd make a cute cheerleader."

"Seriously. Can we just be serious for a minute?"

"I am being serious! I remember when I was dating this guy who worked at the local pool. He was kind of hot and cold. I couldn't figure out whether he liked me or not. So, one night, I snuck into the pool after closing, when I knew he'd still be working. And, well, I went skinny dipping. Just a girl showing off what God gave her."

Emily let her face drop into her hands. "Oh, God," she muttered. "Other mothers don't feel the need to share like this."

"Anyway! My guy was cleaning the pool and… he got a little more than he bargained for!" She chuckled. "So, long story short, we dated that whole summer and he couldn't keep his hands _off_ me."

Something clicked in Emily's brain. "Ew, you're talking about _Jonah_ the pool guy, aren't you? The bearded one with the… feet? I knew there was a reason you dragged us to that pool every day that summer, even though it was all the way across town."

Her mom grinned sheepishly. "Sorry," she said remorselessly.

"Well, thanks, Mom. Thanks for the _invaluable_ advice."

"Oh, okay, come on. That was just an example. My point was… when it comes to guys, all you need to do is _communicate_ your feelings. You can't wait around for them to make up their minds. You'll be waiting forever. So… if you want this guy to kiss you, you should just tell him."

Emily squinted at her mom. "It's that simple?"

"It's that simple. Say to him, 'I want you to kiss me.'"

"And what if he says no?"

"Then at least you'll _know_. And anyway, he won't say no. Because you're amazing, Emily. And hearing those words from someone as amazing as you is about the sexiest thing there is."

Emily exhaled slowly, letting the words sink in. "Thanks, Mom," she said at last. "For what it's worth, I think you're pretty amazing, too."

"I _know_, right?" her mom exclaimed. She reached for the remote and turned the volume on the TV back up.

*

** _Chapter 4_ **

 

Emily balanced on the beam, readying herself. "I want." She kicked her legs up in the air and, for a moment, she was weightless. "You." She landed a perfect split leap and pirouetted to launch into a back handspring. "To kiss." Breathless, she finished on her feet. "Me."

She allowed her gaze to wander across the gym, to where Sasha stood talking to Kaylie, fifty feet away. Then she resumed practicing her beam routine, muttering again under her breath, "I want you to kiss me."

Emily was unaware of Lauren walking past until she said loudly, "Isn't talking to yourself, like, the first sign of madness? I've heard of burned-out gymnasts going crazy, but that's usually champions, not twelfth-place losers."

Emily flushed and then launched into a series of handsprings, in order to make Lauren disappear beneath her in a blur of colours. When she landed, Lauren had gone. Though it burned her to admit it, Lauren was partly right: she should be spending a lot less time talking to herself. The time for practice was over. She returned her gaze to where Kaylie was working on the bars, but Sasha was no longer there.

Her eyes slid across the gym to Sasha's office. Through the windows, she could see him sitting at his desk. She hesitated, tempted to spend a few more minutes on the beam. Then Lauren reappeared beside her. "You done?" she said, indicating to the beam. "I mean, I don't want to rush you. You need all the practice you can get."

Emily glared at her. "I'm done," she said. She jumped down from the beam and stalked away in the direction of Sasha's office.

She felt like her brain had shut down – or, at least, the part of it that might have thought to knock first before barging into the office. She'd developed the kind of tunnel vision usually reserved for gymnastics competitions. When he heard the door open, Sasha looked up momentarily and then resumed reading the papers on his desk, as if she weren't there.

"I want you to kiss me," she said.

Without looking up, Sasha said, "Well, that would be completely inappropriate."

"I want you to kiss me," she repeated, mainly because her brain felt empty of all other words, but also because he had said neither yes nor no and she couldn't deal with gray area right now.

"If you really want to have this conversation, I suggest you close the door."

She did as she was told, and then glanced out the windows at the Rock panorama spread beneath them. It was mid-afternoon and the gym was beginning to empty out. The gymnasts were scurrying away, back to their other lives that included schoolwork, families and regular teen stuff.

Sasha turned the page of the document he was reading. He spoke in a calm, measured voice. "I could lose this job," he said. "I could be branded a pervert. I could go to jail."

Emily was silent.

Sasha looked up, finally. "Where do you want me to kiss you, Emily?" he asked. "On the mouth, like your teenage boyfriend. Sloppy tongues and clashing teeth."

Emily was silent.

"On your neck?" he asked. "On that special spot you don't even know exists yet. The one that makes you so wet, just… keening for something between your legs. Or how about on your breasts? I see the way your nipples harden under your leotard when you perform a routine so flawlessly that it turns you on. I could kiss you there. I could kiss the skin at the base of your spine, that place of perfect tension when your body bends in the air. I could kiss the inside of your thigh when your legs divide on the beam."

His eyes bored into her, demanding.

"I want you to," she said.

He shook his head – _no_ – and returned his gaze to the papers on his desk. The tension in his voice was almost imperceptible when he said, "I'd be breaking the sacred trust between a gymnast and her coach."

"I _want_ you to."

She watched as his fingers reached to turn the page again. The paper shivered ever so slightly. She turned and walked to the door. She cast one last look over her shoulder, but he was still pretending to read.

"I'll be in the gym tonight," she said and allowed the door to swing shut behind her.

*

In the shifting half-light of the darkened gym, Emily worked out to keep from fidgeting. She did the easy manoeuvres, the ones that, as a child, she'd learned from TV and then replicated in playgrounds. She knew that if she tried anything harder tonight, she'd slip and fall. She was unfocused, filled with chaotic energy that sent her limbs flailing wildly. On the floor, she did handstands and backflips and let the blood rush to her head. She tried not to think.

It was edging past two a.m. She'd been at the Rock for almost an hour. She'd thought she would be strong enough to leave if he didn't arrive soon. However, as she cartwheeled across the floor, she knew she would wait. She'd wait and wait and wait. If there was even the slightest possibility he'd show, she'd keep waiting all night.

After trying a half-in half-out and slipping, she sat in the centre of the mat. She rested her forehead on her knees and listened to her own breathing. She sat like that for a long time – she might even have fallen asleep for a while – but her body tensed unconsciously when she heard a set of footsteps behind her.

She turned and sprang to her feet, a little clumsily, wavering on the spot. He didn't greet her or say anything. He just continued walking toward her. She stood motionless, waiting. She felt as if she was still in the air, her brain hot with pounding blood.

When he reached her, he paused for what might have been a split-second, but to Emily it felt like much longer. Then leaned forward, fluidly, and kissed her chastely on the lips. When he pulled back, his expression seemed to say, defiantly: _There, that's what you wanted, isn't it?_

She licked her lips and looked at him for a long moment. Then she stood on tiptoes and placed both hands against the sides of his face. She recalled kissing Damon, how it had been full of giddy excitement – she thought of Sasha's words, _sloppy tongues and clashing teeth_ – and she realized how different this felt. She wanted to kiss Sasha not because it was Something Girls Her Age Did, but for reasons different entirely. It was like there was pressure building inside of her – frustration, anger, lust, ambition – feelings that filled up her throat and threatened to choke her. But when she pressed her lips against Sasha's, a valve inside of her began to release.

She lost herself in kissing him, surrendering to the warmth of his open mouth, the strength of his arms as they lifted her slightly off her feet. They kissed at the speed she dictated, until finally, he laid her down gently on the mat. His hands seemed restless as they roamed the lyrca-clad expanse of her back, his fingers curling around her torso to meet the swell of her breasts.

With Damon, kissing had always felt like the start and the finish. Maybe he'd been thinking of sex, but to her, it was a self-contained act. Satisfying, but unmemorable: a popsicle on a hot summers day. Kissing Sasha, however, was like hearing the first strain of her favourite song. It was a taste of pleasure that only hinted at how much more there was to come.

Breathless, she pulled away. "That…" she tried to say, "that special spot on my neck…"

Taking her cue, he began to kiss her neck, but she wasn't finished. "I'm always wet… every time you look at me, I need… I need…"

Her words fell to pieces on her tongue and she settled for simply breathing his name, repeating it rhythmically as he kissed her neck.

"Quiet," he said, "you need to be quiet now."

She realized they were the first words he'd spoken. She wondered vaguely why she needed to be quiet – who they were hiding from, who might hear – but she stopped talking and looked upward at the cavernous, church-like ceiling. He did not undress, but he peeled her leotard down, lifting it off her shoulders; inch by inch revealing her skin to his mouth.

She could do little except cling to him and try to ride out the new sensations. To be so weak, so utterly under his spell, was overwhelming. She craned her neck further upward, arching her back as he kissed the shape of her pelvic bone, pulling her leotard down over her thighs. The ceiling felt so far above her, and as dizzy pinpricks of light danced before her eyes, it almost seemed like they were stars in the night sky. She tried to do as she was told and stay quiet, but as his mouth found the wetness between her legs, each breath was, unbidden, unaccompanied by a moan.

His hands gripped her hips firmly, but his tongue was so gentle – almost maddeningly slow and controlled – as he explored the folds of her labia. When he sucked her clitoris into his mouth, the imagined sky beneath the backs of her eyelids exploded and she realized she couldn't have spoken if she'd wanted to. She came, her body jerking out of control.

With eyes closed and wetness still leaking from between her legs, she lay there on the mat for a long time. Though the heat of orgasm had seeped from her skin and her exposed body had begun to shiver, she could not bring herself to move. To sit up, to open her eyes, was to acknowledge that he was gone; he had given her what he thought she wanted and left, wordlessly.

*

** _Chapter 5_ **

 

Emily stood in the shower, which dribbled a water flow with the lukewarm consistency of spit. Naked, she examined her skin for bruises. She found none except for a fading purple mark on her shin where she'd messed up on the vault the week before. She was clean, unblemished. It was as if he had never even touched her.

With a sigh, she towelled herself dry and got dressed. When she left the bathroom, she found her mom standing at the kitchen counter, stirring a third teaspoon of sugar into her coffee.

"Morning, honey. I feel like I haven't seen you in days," she said.

"Gotta go to practice, Mom," Emily said, jamming her feet into her sneakers.

"At least tell me things are with the new boy…" Seeing Emily's expression, she continued hastily, "Oh, I know you don't want to tell me his name or any possible identifying details, but you could at least give me some kind of _clue_—"

"I gotta go, Mom," Emily said firmly.

Things with Sasha had officially progressed beyond the point where she could ask her mom for advice, even hypothetically. It wasn't as if she and her mother had never talked about sex – when your mom gets pregnant with you at the age of 16, she's generally pretty keen to prevent history from repeating – but that conversation had stopped after "wait till you're ready, use protection". It hadn't exactly dealt with how to convince your older lover to hurt you the way you wanted.

In lieu of a better plan, she decided to go for the direct approach again. She waited till late in the day, after Sasha had finished his coaching duties at the Rock, before she went to see him in his office. However, before she could even open her mouth to speak, he said—

"No."

"…I didn't say anything," she pointed out, exasperated.

"Unless you want me to coach you on something… to show you how to do… I don't know, a Shushunova, the answer to your request is no."

"I already know how to do a Shushunova."

"Then the answer must be no," he said.

Emily was silent for a long moment, and then she tried again. "Last night—"

"Last night, you got what you wanted," he said simply.

It was her turn to say, "No."

"Emily, you have to stop this," he said, his voice teetering on the edge of anger. "What we've been doing is very, very wrong. Forget this job, it's my _life_ that you're… merrily doing Shushunovas over. You want, you want, you _want_. You want me to kiss you and I do. You want your first sexual experience to be with some gentle, gallant lover—"

"I never said—"

"You want it and I give it to you. But this has to stop." He exhaled a long, unsteady breath. "You have to give me something now. _Go_. You have to leave, find someone your own age."

Emily stared at him. He finished his little speech with a visible flourish, tightening his jaw and squaring his shoulders. He did look so much the gallant knight that she had to laugh.

He blinked at her, uncomprehending, but still she could not stop laughing.

"You've got it all figured out, haven't you," she said at last, gulping down what remained of her laughter.

"Apparently not," he said tightly.

"Want to know why my nipples get hard when I perform? It's not because I'm winning, although I guess that's part of it. It's because… I _hurt_. My whole body is screaming. You remember how that feels, right? I guess other gymnasts, maybe they block out the pain. But me, I thrive on the pain. It's like this dark energy in my limbs and… it hurts, but it makes me feel alive and… just to know I could make it stop if I wanted…" She felt her eyes glaze over and she had to stop talking.

She blinked. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off: "I don't want you to fuck me like a gallant knight."

He was still for a long moment, just looking at her. Then he pushed back his chair and walked slowly over to where she stood. He reached out a hand and placed his palm against her throat, splaying his fingers over her neck, his thumb resting in the hollow of her collarbone. The pressure was light.

Her eyes flicked to the windows, the gym floor below, still in use. She calculated the trajectory, as she knew he must have done. Here, near the door, where windows subsided into walls, they were only visible to someone climbing the stairs to Sasha's office. The risk of anyone seeing them was small, but it was still a risk.

With his hand at her throat, he was still a foot away from her. She tried to close the distance between them, but the pressure of his hand increased, holding her back. His fingers shivered against her neck. The pressure increased and she found herself skidding backward, so that her back was against the wall. His hand was an uncomfortably heavy presence against her throat now. She had to concentrate on each breath.

"Ground rules," he murmured.

She stared him dead in the eyes, meeting his challenge.

"You'll need to be obedient." His mouth twitched with a smile. "You'll need to try and learn how."

She began to roll her eyes, but when his fingers dug into her neck, hard enough to leave bruises, she choked out a sarcastic, "Yes, sir."

"You'll need to be quiet until I tell you to speak."

This time, she completed her eye roll.

"You'll need to do exactly as I say. You need to understand… if I hurt you, it's because you want me to. It's because you're mine."

His fingers curled, squeezing at her neck for the first time. He closed the distance between them, so that they were inches apart. He kicked her legs apart and she felt his erection pushing against her thigh. Using his other hand, he rubbed between her legs, where the leotard clung to her, warm and wet. Taking shallow breaths, she felt her vision dim.

Abruptly, Sasha relaxed his grip on neck; he stopped rubbing between her legs. "And if, at any point," he said in a different voice, one that was calm, almost genial, "you change your mind, this isn't what you want, you can stop it. You call me 'Coach' and it's over. Say the word 'coach' and that's what I am. Just your coach. Nothing else. You're a child again, you're free. But until you say that word, you're mine."

"I am," Emily whispered.

"I told you to be quiet," Sasha said fiercely. He increased his grip on her neck and his thumb began circling her clit, rubbing hard.

*

"You want?"

As Emily slid into place beside her on the mat, Kaylie held up a family-size bottle of Advil and shook it like a baby's rattle. Emily shook her head. Kaylie shrugged, pouring four pills for herself into her palm. It was probably a high dose for a normal person, but for a gymnast, it was nothing.

"I dinged my back yesterday," Kaylie said, wincing. "Killing me."

The way Kaylie talked about her body, it was like she was talking about an unfortunate accident with her car. It was how a lot of gymnasts dealt with the pain, of course: detach; repress.

"That sucks," said Emily.

While Emily began her warm up, Kaylie groaned slightly as she leaned into a lumbar roll. Emily folded her track jacket away into her gym bag, but she kept her sweat pants on. She cracked her neck and felt the bruised flesh of her neck stretch. She couldn't help but press her fingers against her neck for a moment, reawakening her skin. She forced herself to stop: she'd dabbed her mom's foundation over the area this morning and it would be annoying to have to reapply so soon.

Kaylie performed a Popa – a straddle jump and turn – and then stumbled, her hand gripping her lower back. "Shh—shoot," she muttered. Her eyes flicked upward. "Oh god, did Sasha see me screw up? …Oh, he saw me. He's looking right over here."

Clenching her jaw, Kaylie repeated the Popa jump, flawlessly this time. Landing breathlessly, with her fingers still rubbing at her back, she glanced across the gym again. "And he's _still_ watching," she muttered, exasperated. "What does he want, blood?"

Casually, Emily allowed her gaze to cross the gym, to where Sasha stood. Maybe he really was playing the benevolent dictator; overseeing his domain, judging Kaylie for her inconsequential screw-ups. Maybe.

On the mat, Emily stretched out her hamstring, leaning forward to touch her toes. Then she stretched her legs slowly into a side split. She let her eyes drift closed, hoping that to anyone watching, it would appear that she was just concentrating, visualizing her next routine. In fact, the pain so intense that she could concentrate on nothing – nothing except the memory of the previous night.

She experienced again the crushing sensation of his body on hers. She wondered if they would ever have sex in a bed, if that could ever feel as good as being spread open on the gym mats in the hushed darkness of the Rock after hours.

She had bruises on her thighs from where his hands had grasped her, hooking her legs up against his shoulders. On his knees, he had thrust his cock inside her, going so deep that she felt her whole body might split open. As she had lain back and allowed him to fuck her relentlessly, the sense of his power over her was absolute.

Emily realized she'd been sitting with her legs stretched into splits for far longer than necessary, long enough that her feet felt numb. Reluctantly, she stood up and shook the pins and needles out. She realized that Kaylie was looking at her strangely.

"You sure you're okay?" asked Kaylie.

Emily nodded. "Never better," she murmured.

She pressed her thumb against a spot on her thigh where a particularly mean bruise had bloomed. The sharp burst of pain – the memory it awakened – centered her. She took a deep breath and set off across the mat, completing a routine of flawless, razor-sharp jumps and leaps. She didn't have to look in Sasha's direction to know that he was still watching her.


End file.
